Maestro move: Warsaw selects half-Pole
mainThe Warsaw National Philharmonic has named Andrey Boreyko as its next music director, starting in 2019. He succeeds the veteran Jacek Kaspszyk.
Boreyko, 61, is presently head of the Artis-Naples Orchestra in Florida. The national-minded Polish media claim him as one of their own, or at least 50 percent.
Born in 1957 to a Polish father and a Russian mother, Boreyko spent his childhood in Poland. He moved to Leningrad to study conducting and, having returned to Poland in 1991, he served for four years as music director of the western Polish Poznań Symphony Orchestra.
Er, and?
KANANPOIKA SAYS:
Andrey was our Music Director for four glorious years. His renditions of Mahler 3 & 9
were absolute high-points of a professional career spanning almost four decades. His
Schubert “Unfinished” was a powerful utterance unique to my experience. Even that “pops” piece, “Night on Bald Mountain” (in the Rimsky version) was beyond anything I could have imagined.
My congratulations to the Warsaw National Philharmonic!
Half a Pole? Good grief grow up!
Better than no Pole. 🙂
I just bought a new recording he made of the Gorecki Third Symphony with the Poznan orchestra. Having owned the Zinman/Upshaw recording I didn’t think it could be bettered but this new recording is in a wholly different league. It’s much slower and is immensely moving. I recommend it very strongly if this is a piece you admire. It’s not a “better version because it’s slower”, it’s a different interpretation – a live performance (with a totally silent audience) and with a haunting soprano (Izykowska) sound that is quite extraordinary. I bought the recording on the recommendation in a recent Gramophone, the reviewer stating he wept through the whole thing. I know why.
Boreyko has recorded and performed other Symphonies by Gorecki too.
It’s good that someone trained his spotlight on Poland. The coutry is a treasure chest of culture (not just musical!) and for us know-alls there’s lots to discuss. Anyone seen any Wroclaw Opera productions?
By the way, I thought the Zinman/Upshaw Sorrowful Songs were pretty slow already. 🙂
Robert Groen is correct. I just attended the Wratislavia Cantans Festival in Wroclaw and the quality of performances was consistently of the highest level. Standout concerts were Jacek Kaspszyk’s definitive conducting of Król Roger: Andrzej Kosendiak’s direction of Zebrowski’s little known (outside Poland) Missa Pastoritia: Giovanni Antonini’s fascinating reading of Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli and Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s electrifying travelling road-show of the Verdi Requiem. The superb NFM concert hall is reason in itself to visit the beautiful city of Wroclaw. Poland may be on a serious backslide politically but in terms of music, it is in the forefront of European excellence.
Yes, Wrocław has a wonderful cultural life. Given that it is only the fourth largest city in the ninth largest country in Europe, the range and quality of culture available is extraordinary. Probably no city in the UK outside of London has more to offer, and certainly not a city such as Bristol, which is roughly the same size as Wrocław. Both the opera company and the ballet company (each with their own orchestra) perform to a very high standard, with surprisingly up-to-date productions. The new Narodowe Forum Muzyki is a jewel in the crown of Polish culture. The concert hall is certainly superior to both the Royal Festival Hall and the Barbican Hall. The NFM is home to three resident orchestras, two choirs, and half a dozen chamber music groups. Poland’s excellent National Youth Choir, the Polski Narodowy Chór Młodzieżowy, is also based in Wrocław. The old Filharmonia, opened in 1968, was also a very fine concert hall, architecturally interesting and with an excellent acoustic. The city also has a number of theatres and theatre companies, including the Teatr Polski, which in fact comprises three venues, making it only slightly smaller than Britain’s National Theatre on the Southbank. And don’t get me started on the museums…
Boreyko is a very strong conductor. Stunning Manfred Symphony some years ago in Toronto. Never understood his residency under the radar.
He’s a great conductor.